NAIVASHA, Kenya (AP) — When Dickson Ngome first rented his farm at Lake Naivasha in Kenya’s Rift Valley in 2008, it was more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the shore. The farm was on 1.5 acres (0.6 hectares) of fertile land where he grew vegetables to sell in local markets.
At the time, the lake was receding and people were worried that it might dry up altogether. But since 2011, the shore has crept closer and closer. The rains started earlier this year in September and haven’t let up for months.
One morning in late October, Ngome and his family awoke to find their home and farm inside the lake. The lake level had risen overnight and about a foot of water covered everything.
“It seemed like the lake was far away from our homes,” Ngome’s wife, Rose Wafula, told The Associated Press. “And then one night we were shocked to find out that the houses were flooded. The water came out of nowhere.”
Climate change has caused increased rainfall, scientists say
The couple and their four children were forced to leave their home and are camping on the first floor of an abandoned school nearby.
About 5,000 people have been displaced by rising Lake Naivasha levels this year. Some scientists attribute the higher levels to increased rainfall caused by climate change, although there may be other factors causing the lake’s steady rise over the past decade.
The lake is a tourism hotspot and is surrounded by farms, mostly growing flowers, which have gradually disappeared into the water as the lake level rises.
The rising levels were not isolated to Naivasha: Lake Baringo, Lake Nakuru and Lake Turkana in Kenya – all in the Rift Valley – have been rising steadily for 15 years.
“The lakes have risen almost beyond the highest level they’ve ever reached,” said Simon Onywere, who teaches environmental planning at Kenyatta University in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
Rising lake levels displaced tens of thousands
A study in the Journal of Hydrology last year found that lake areas in East Africa increased by 71,822 square kilometers (27,730 square miles) between 2011 and 2023. This affects a lot of people: By 2021, more than 75,000 households have been displaced along the Rift Valley, according to a study by the United Nations Development Commission in Kenya and the Ministry United Nations Development, that year. Program.
In Baringo, the submerged buildings that made headlines in 2020 and 2021 are still under water.
“In Lake Baringo, the water has risen by almost 14 metres,” Onywere said. “Everything sank, completely underneath. Buildings will never be seen again, like the Block Hotels in Lake Baringo.”
Flower farms take a beating
Lake Naivasha has been steadily rising, “swallowing up three-quarters of some flower farms,” Onywere said.
Horticulture is a major economic sector in Kenya, generating revenues of just over US$1 billion in 2024 and providing 40% of the volume of roses sold in the European Union, according to Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Significant research has looked at the reasons behind the rising lakes phenomenon: a 2021 study on Kenya’s growth’
“There are researchers who come up with drivers that are geological, others with reasons like planetary factors,” Muita said. “The Kenya Meteorological Department has found that rising water levels are associated with rainfall patterns and temperature changes. When rains are heavy, they line up with rising water levels in the Rift Valley Lake.”
Sedimentation is also a factor. “From the research I’ve read, there’s a lot of sediment, especially from agriculture-related activities, that flows into these lakes,” says Muita.
“A mess” made by the government years ago
Naivasha’s official high water mark was marked at 1,892.8 meters (6,210 feet) above sea level by the Riparian Association in 1906 and is still used by surveyors today. That means this year’s floods were still nearly a meter (3 feet) below the high mark.
It also means that the Kihoto community on Lake Naivasha, where the Ngomes lived, is on riparian land – land that falls below the high water mark and can only be owned by the government.
“It’s a government-created mess … in the late 1960s,” said Silas Wanjala, managing director of the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, which was founded about 120 years ago and has been keeping meticulous records of the lake’s water levels ever since.
Back then, a farmer was given a “temporary agricultural lease” on Kihoto, Wanjala said. When it later flooded and the farmer packed up and left, the farmers stayed on the land and later applied for allotments, which were approved. In the 60 years since then, an entire settlement has grown up on land that is not officially for rent or sale.
Also, this is not the first time it has been flooded, Wanjala said. It is very rare for the water to rise this high. That’s small consolation for people who were displaced by this year’s floods and now can’t go home without risking run-ins with hippos.
To support these people, the county focuses its efforts where the need is greatest.
“We are treating this as an emergency,” says Joyce Ncece, chief disaster management officer in Nakuru County, which oversees Lake Naivasha. “The county government provided trucks to help families move. We helped pay the rent for those who don’t have financing.”
Scientists like Onywere and Muita hope for longer-term solutions. “Could we have predicted this so that we could have done better infrastructure in less risk-prone areas?” They said.
Muita wants to see a more concerted global effort to combat climate change, as well as local, nature-based solutions centered on indigenous knowledge, such as “conservation agriculture, where there is very limited land disturbance,” to reduce lake sedimentation.
But all this is of little help to Ngome and Wafula, who still live at the school with their children. As the rest of the world looks forward to the holidays and the new year, their future is uncertain. Lake Naivasha’s continued growth over the past 15 years does not bode well: they have no idea when or if their farm will ever return to dry land.
___
For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.